


Small Freedoms

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Ai no Kusabi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:52:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iason and Riki contemplate each other, and the allowances their lives together allow them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Freedoms

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Lilah the Dragon

 

 

Every day, it's the same old thing. I wake up, staring at the same ceiling, in the same sheets, thinking the same thing; I wish I'd not woken up at all. Being alive here makes me sick. I groan, rolling onto my side, away from the still body that's laying a few inches away from me and run my hand through my hair. Damn, I realize. Last night left marks on my wrists. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll give it up and never do that to me again. Leather cuffs, tying me down so the asshole could have whatever way with me he wanted. I'm glad I barely remember any of it, except for the dull ache of my backside, reminding me that yeah, he _did_ have whatever way with me he wanted. That bastard.

I'm trying to be as quiet as possible, so I don't wake him as I get myself ready for whatever bullshit he's going to put me through today. I shower, get myself cleaned up, then I start thinking about getting dressed, which I quickly forget about. Why the hell bother yet? It's not like I'll be allowed to stay in the clothes I put on. Every damn day I end up in some half-assed harem boy outfit, and get paraded around for the other nobles of Tanagura like I'm some piece of meat. Which, to them, I guess I am. Worthless mongrel, I hear them whispering to each other, and one day, I'm going to get my way out of that pen and punch them for saying it. Do they really think I wanted to be here? That the life of a Pet is something _I_ wanted for myself? It's bad enough that I'm his prisoner without having to be put through all these insults and humiliation. I've had enough of it. But it's not like that matters at all.

I look down as I come to sit on the edge of the bed again, frowning at the silver ring wrapped around the base of my cock. My Pet ring. The thing that marks me as property, and dictates that until Iason wants nothing to do with me anymore, I don't _have_ emotions. I don't get embarrassed when he makes me bend over and take whatever blunt object that he, or any of his other assorted harem choose to shove in me. Because of this ring, I'm an exhibitionist, I'm worthless, and I'm expendable. Just another pretty face until I'm too old enough to look good at his feet or in his bed. Disgusting.

"I should stop thinking about it," I whisper to myself as I push back the covers and slide back into the cold spot I'd vacated earlier, now robbed of it's warmth by the time I took getting the filth and sweat of last night washed of my body. He's still sound asleep, and it doesn't even look like he's moved since I left. I stare at the ceiling for another few minutes, then turn onto my side to look at him.

If he weren't such an asshole, he might be attractive. But even while he's sleeping, he manages to piss me off. His hair is still perfect, like he didn't even exert himself at all last night, and he's still got this self satisfied smirk on his face. It makes me want to punch him. But I know how beaten I would get if I tried, so I just frown at him, my hands unconsciously balling into fists. I can't look at him anymore, I decide, and roll back into a position where I don't have to see him, or even feel his breath on the back of my neck. I sigh, trying to get comfortable again and maybe go back to sleep, considering I've still got some time to be unconscious and forget about where the hell my worthless life has taken me before he wakes up. I might as well go back to sleep.

It looks like I'm not going to be allowed to even do _that_ , though, because now, for what reason, I don't know, he decides that he needs to be pressed right up against me. He reaches out and pulls me back, and I'm trained too well to resist him, so I curl up against him. At least he's got the decency to keep letting me look away from him. I hear a more content sound from him, and then something that almost sounds like a chuckle before he's completely still again. I don't think too much about the fact that he might be laughing at me, since it'll just piss me off to the point that I won't be able to get any more rest, and I close my eyes, hoping it isn't long before sleep takes me, and I don't have to deal him or this life for a while.

~

It is a cold morning. The temperature control of my room is set too low for this time of the year, and so the chamber has cooled down to a point where remaining asleep is a better choice of action than rising from a warm bed to greet the day's duties. Not to mention that I possess a warm, living thing who lays next to me, who gives me even less reason to wish to wake. Unfortunately, he insists on staying as far from me as possible while we sleep, and so his warmth is lost to me.

His breathing pattern has changed, and I assume he's woken, and is going through what I've seen has become his morning routine. He is laying in bed, his eyes turned to the high ceiling and is pondering. What he is thinking of, I can only imagine. It does not terribly concern me. In fact, it pleases me to know that even as I hold him as my possession, he still is somehow free from me. It makes the game of caging him ever more challenging, that I might own his body, train him into saying and doing the things that please me, but never shall I be capable of ruling his mind, his thoughts.

Somehow, it is disappointing, that after a year in my possession, he is not yet truly _mine_. I imagine it is because he has had a difficult time adjusting to life in Tanagura, and the role he now plays here. I am certain he pays no mind to the scandal that his presence is creating, nor do I. In truth, it makes me all the more proud to own a thing such as him. Unlike the rest of the properly bred and trained Pets available to the nobility, he is unique. Spirited. Unlike the rest of them, he is _free_. He has always been this way, and will cling to it for as long as possible.

It is the reason I decided to both save him, and take him with me all that time ago. The craving for something free in a life that is dictated by a being greater than myself. Such are the Blondies - creations of Jupiter to serve as the liason between man and machine. To communicate with the humans it considers to be a lower life form. Our lives are products of Jupiter's will, never of our own. We are her pieces, sent to dictate the movement of her pawns. We do not take action ourselves, we dispense her will.

Riki is a thing I desired of my _own_ will. In choosing him as I have, and taming him, I do a thing that is solely for my own benefit. I take his body because _I_ desire it. It is a thrilling thing, to have something of my own, to have a semblance of freedom in keeping him. I still delight in having him here, even knowing that he hates me, because in him, I have defied Jupiter's unspoken decree that Blondies live only for her and not for themselves.

It has been quite a while since Riki rose and left me for a time, but he now returns, and his whispered words confirm to me what I believed he had been pondering in his silence. There is another long pause, and I sense his dark gaze on me, as I do for several moments before he turns away again. He smells clean and sweet now, and the residual dampness of his body tells me he must have bathed. I enjoy the scent of him when he is freshly cleaned, and though he still tries to remain far from me, I reach out to draw him against my body. He is tense for a few moments, and then resigns himself to my arms. I cannot stifle the whisper soft laugh that escapes me, and then I let myself begin to fade into sleep once more. And as I do, I cannot help but wonder if he realizes how alike we are, and whether or not he appreciates his own small freedoms as I do mine.

 


End file.
